Horrific VisionsBy Moshe KatzCEOIsraeli Krav International

July 10, 2019, Melbourne, Australia

I am in Melbourne,
Australia, from the first moment on the flight I feel the change; happy people,
sweet, kind and friendly. I remark to my friendly neighbor on the plane how it is
remarkable that mankind can create societies so diverse, some filled with
horror and crime, some so peaceful that crime is difficult to imagine.

But imagine it we
must.

Let us go back in
time, it is Lwow (Lvov, Lviv) in Poland. September 1939, 4 am and the war
begins. The Jews understand what is coming. All the Jew haters will come out in
force, and soon there will be a pogrom, an attack on the Jews for no reason.

A man named
Benzion Redner keeps a diary (in Polish). He writes on this day in September
1939, the Jews knew that terrible times were coming...Yet in those times of panic none of us Jews
foresaw that even our most horrific visions of the future would turn out to be
merely the palest reflection of what would happen later. (A Jewish Policeman in
Lwow, page 22)

Back to the
present, I am in the hotel business center, tired after a long journey, a woman
walks over and offers me a complementary cup of coffee. How wonderful this
world can be. As I am writing these words, she walks over again to ask how the
coffee was and if there is anything she can do for me. What a wonderful world
it can be when people are kind to strangers.

She asks me what I
am here for. We discuss self defense and she says that here she lives without fear. Our world of
violence and hatred seems so far away at the moment. and that is my point. It
seems so far away.

Back to 1939, the
Redner family and their friends have had a few good years in Lwow. They are
relaxed. But several members of the family were more in tune with reality. They
have already emigrated to America. After the war they will greet the few
survivors of the family in Poland and help them start new lives in the United
States.

June 1941, The
Germans occupy Lwow, now the real panic sets in, but it is too late for most.
The young couple, Lusiek and Erna Wasserman are killed at once, later they are
envied for their quick death.

The Jews, even the
children, understood that the game was over for the Jews, but no one knew just
how bad it would be.

Back to the
future, a school principal in Florida, USA, says that the Holocaust is not a
fact but a personal opinion. He does not want to make the study of these
historic events mandatory. But
Benzion Redner kept a diary, as did many others.

We cannot see the future;
we cannot know how bad it will be. But we must.

American General
Eisenhower saw the future, as he was among those to liberate the
"camps", i.e. the death factories, he said, Boys, take photos of
everything, a time will come when people deny this ever happened.

The rabbis say,
who is wise? he who sees the future. We are dealing with the perversion,
distortion and outright denial of truth as well as the very real threat of
violence.

As much as the
Jews of Lwow, even the children, knew that terrible times were coming, their worst nightmares paled in comparison
to the truth. From this we must learn; plan for the worst, and then take it a
few steps further. Our Krav Maga is based on this idea.

Therefore we must
always anticipate the worst, and beyond. We fight only when we have to, we get
away when we can. We use only the most basic gross motor moves. We do not rely
on those abilities which will not exist under stress.

My new friend asks
me to teach her some basic self defense. She understands it at once. The world
can be beautiful, but we must prepare for other possibilities as well.